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A Greek Gallery

Megakles Rogakos who is a part of the fantastic network of artists I have amassed over the years, has curated a beautiful little show within a gallery in Greece. I love the work within the collection, so I decided I just had to blog about it! Megakles Rogakos is an art historian as well as a curator for the American College of Greece. The group display is organised by the Cultural Foundation of Tinos which has already held exhibitions of works by Nikolaos Gyzis (1842-1901) and his close friend Nikiforos Lytras (1832-1904).

The show is named ‘Cyclades: Lands ~ Forms ~ Symbols’ and contains some fascinating work by a variety of artists working within the realm of contemporary visual art: Manthos Gaitis, Lefteris Kritikos, Babis Kritikos, Christos Santamouris and Praxitelis Tzanoulinos.

I have some photographs of the gallery displaying all the different pieces:

Central piece by Praxitelis Tzanoulinos. I am a fan of industrial type artwork, which this piece seems to reflect, although Tzanoulinos takes this theme further by fusing the organic and the natural. Here, the sculpture is caressed by the soft folds of a wave-like shape resting upon the wheel.

Left to right: artworks by Praxitelis Tzanoulinos, Babis Kritikos, Manthos Gaitis, Lefteris Kritikos, Christos Santamouris. In his latest work, Gaitis comes up with landscapes from his island of origin while at the same time drawing upon the work of Italian author Italo Calvino’s ‘Invisible Cities’ which reflects upon the changing city- its growth, its evolution and its apparent devolution and disappearance.

Left to right: artworks by Babis Kritikos. Sculptor Babis Kritikos, who studied at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, blends autobiographical references with mythological elements and a tribute to influential Greek artists Yannoulis Halepas, Theophilos and Yannis Tsarouchis.

Left to right: artworks by Manthos Gaitis, Lefteris Kritikos, Babis Kritikos, Christos Santamouris and Praxitelis Tzanoulinos. Self-taught in the art of tapestry, Lefteris Kritikos became influenced through a childhood memory of women working with rugs when, in 1976 at the age of 28, he came across a horizontal loom and learned to use it. Embroidered with scenes that are reminiscent of painting, his tapestries focus mainly on the sea and the sky, themes which are rendered in the colours of grey, blue and purple- cold, yet inviting.

Left to right: artworks by Manthos Gaitis, Christos Santamouris and Babis Kritikos.

Left to right: artworks by Lefteris Kritikos, Christos Santamouris and Manthos Gaitis.

Left to right: artworks by Lefteris Kritikos, Babis Kritikos and Manthos Gaitis.

Left to right: artworks by Praxitelis Tzanoulinos and Lefteris Kritikos. Praxitelis Tzanoulinos approaches his bronze sculptures in an organic manner by imitating the movement of a shell fragment he encountered at sea, or the barnacles on the rocks whose surface has been roughened by the waves.

Left to right: artworks by Christos Santamouris, Babis Kritikos and Praxitelis Tzanoulinos.

Left to right: artworks by Christos Santamouris. Painter and engraver Christos Santamouris’ lyrical works are based upon both the subconscious and experience. Multi-layered and enigmatic, his works encourage interplay between the real and the metaphysical, past and present, light and darkness, shifting shapes and layers.